Shopping Wars

Last night at church, the person who normally does the sound for the service could not make it in. So I did the video and the sound. I even told the Pastor I would provide security service for the back door. He asked me about my weapons qualification so I sent him this photo from my old nuclear security days (as supervisors, we rotated being the tactical response force team leaders).

This morning I got a flier from BJs with a big sale on a home telephone that Lucie and I wanted to get each other for Christmas. The volume in our current phone is gone and it is pretty old with limited range. It has been eating up batteries too. So the flier had the phone we had been looking at for $30 off. I took it to the local BJs and they said they would not sell me the phone at that price. The manager said that was on online only price. The flier did not say it was an online purchase only. In fact, it said that the items in the flier complemented what is in the stores. It would cost over $11 in shipping costs to buy it online . Which made no sense since they had it right there in the store! So I wrote to BJs and complained (they didn't have a corporate phone number I could easily find) and headed to Costco (our preferred warehouse club). They had the same phone in stock but would not price match. I then marched myself across the parking lot to Circuit City. Not only did they match the BJs flier price, but they took an additional 5% off! Their normal price was pretty high so we wound up getting the phone for about 40% off their regular price. Not a bad day's work.

After this experience, I feel qualified to offer myself as a professional shopper if someone would like me to take care of their Christmas list this year...

Meanwhile, it continues to rain and mist here. Which sure beats snow but it looks like we might get some of that this weekend.

Basketball tonight. I make a point to have Elliott watch me to learn what not to do...